World Music Pedagogy: Gateway to Global Citizenship and Children’s Creative Impulses

Abstract

In this article, we seek to examine ways in which educators can bring music of world cultures into classrooms of children in a respectful, sensitive manner. Myriad issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion are at the center of the conversation among music educators across the globe. As educators are committed to issues of globaliation, social justice, and cultural democracy, we intend here to discuss World Music Pedagogy (WMP) as a means of fostering children’s musical and cultural awareness in embracing both local and global communities. These involve careful considerations, as WMP is a multi-dimensional learning process that recognises the importance of deep and reflective listening as gateway to knowing the music in order to participate in it, to perform it, to create new works within the style of the studied music, and to know its cultural meaning, context, and function. Lastly, we present three “classroom portraits” through activities with examples from Brazilian, Ugandan, and Canadian Arctic Indigenous cultures that can open pathways that lead learners to a comprehensive experience with music in and as culture.